Quoll Work Thread, 2024-12-15 #2 - 2024-12-15 18:18
I was able to get out my first implementation of a fully adaptive response for this response and man, I’ve really kind of made my job so hard with doing adaptive writing here. I still need to test several branches, but I also need to eat some food and take a shower, so that’s probably going to eat up all the time I have tonight. In lieu of further updates, let me explain why this response in particular is such a challenge to write.
I’ve mentioned in multiple other updates I’ve made (though probably mostly on Cohost, and I haven’t imported my posts from there to here yet as of writing) that one of the gimmicks for this First Exercise level is that Ada has a buggy cognitohazardous roommate named Taffany. Taffany speaks a bit like a Pokémon, saying only variations on her name. When Ada talks with Taffany using conversational commands like ASK ABOUT, this speech pattern spreads to Ada.
Ada may notice this happening on her own, but since she is in a chunk of time that can be reset, her own memories of noticing this will also reset. A Playerr would likely want to ask her skunktaur tutors, Glitch and the Annoying Skunktaur Puppet about it. The tutors’ memories do not reset on the timeline resetting.
Additionally, Taffany has a randomly set gender, which is actually the aspect of reality the Playerr and Ada are trying to modify with their program. With a different gender, Taffany’s name changes to Taffery, and her pronouns also change.
So you put that all together, here are the branches that I have written code for to adapt this response:
- If Ada has been told about the effect already or not
- If Ada hasn’t been told, if she is currently taffificated at all
- If Ada is taffificated, if Ada has noticed the effect or not
- If the skunktaurs have told Ada about it, with a variation in the first response based on if Ada is currently taffificated (because Ada starts the conversation differently)
- If the skunktaurs have told her and are just reminding Ada, if Ada remembers being told or not because that changes her response
- If the Annoying Skunktaur Puppet has made a side comment that it probably shouldn’t be making, realizes that, and doesn’t make in the future
- If Ada remembers that the Annoying Skunktaur Puppet only offered to clear her taffification once for free, but only the first time she remembers
- And throughout, addressing Taffany by the correct name and gender
See, it’s really complicated! I mean, this is exactly the type of adaptiveness that is making me do this as a game instead of a novel, and I do hope Playerrs are delighted to notice the differences on multiple playthroughs, but I feel I deserve to lament the amount of work!
That will probably be my last post on this today, sadly, I thought I would get further along in the time I had before I needed to get ready, but at the least I’m glad I got this done! Next time, testing all the branches I haven’t hit yet!